should governments pay economic reparations for historical injustices?

Question

Speech and Debate class assignment. I need points for the negative side, give me some opening points that support governments NOT paying reparations.

Answer 1

First, there is not a single former slave alive today. If there were, they would certainly be due just compensation for their labor, but the ancestors of atrocities do not deserve compensation in any way. As a precedent for this point of view, from the last century, let us look at how the compensation of slave labor during the holocaust of World War II has been handled. The thousands of people that survived that inequity are being compensated by both the government of Germany and by the companies that gained from their forced labor, and rightfully so. But their children have no inherited right to collect for the uncompensated labor of their parents. Certainly the grandchildren and great grandchildren of American slaves never experienced the appalling life of slavery, and therefore, like the children of Jews and others enslaved in Germany 50 years ago, they have no claim for themselves.

Secondly, blacks do not have a monopoly on living in poverty in this country. According to the latest census data approximately 30 percent of blacks and whites live in poverty. Hispanics unfortunately have an even higher percentage living below the poverty line. All this current day poverty can not be attributed to a disgusting institution that was ended 150 years ago. It can however be attributed to present day governmental policy. There should be a monumental effort made by the government, at all levels, to get all Americans out of poverty, but a policy centered on only one race is just as wrong as slavery was.

Thirdly, slavery could not have existed without the complicity of black Africans who supplied most of the unfortunate humans that were sold into this dreadful condition. It was not just whites that kept this retched institution going for over 200 years. In addition, there were over 200,000 white Americans that paid the ultimate retribution during the Civil War, when they gave their lives to end slavery. The reparation debt owed to slaves was paid a long time ago when the North won the Civil War and freed them.

Answer 2

I don't buy the notion that a government is strictly an entity and should be treated as such without consideration for the context, the people who make up the entity, and so forth. The people in existance now, whether in government or just citizens, had nothing whatsover to do with something that happened in the past. So even if there's a consensus that something bad happened, that someone was wronged, it wasn't anyone alive that perpetrated the wrong. In addition, in many cases, what we see as wrong now, was not wrong then. So the people committing the act were just like the average person. Also there's the notion that one group can apply their values, judgements, and so on to others. Honestly, it makes no sense. Like passing a law and making it retroactive. It's done, but it's wrong and causes more hurt and suffering. Because if something wasn't illegal or wrong when you did it, why should someone be able to come back many years later, accuse you and get you in trouble for it? It makes no sense in any context.

Answer 3

Until the US Government honors it's treaties with the Native Americans, it is not appropriate to discuss any kind of compensation to any other group. Every 'group' that has come to or has been in this country has been treated unfairly - the Scot, the Italians, the African Americans, the Japanese, the Hispanics, the Jews, all of them. But it all started with the treatment of the Native Americans. If any group is entitled to reparations, it is them. But since the government has failed to honor 143 treaties with the Native Americans, how can even one penny be paid to any other 'group'? First, the treaties have to be honored. Then the government can discuss with the Native Americans other reparations. If anything is left, you can give some token amount to the others. After all, it was NOT their country, ever. Otherwise, nobody gets anything. Period.

Answer 4

No, there is a limit to the wealth of a people but their have been limitless injustices through the ages.

How would one set the equity of an injustice brought forward?

What is an injustice --- is the fact that great great granddad Thomas was robbed in 1890 the reason that you cannot read or have a 1,000,000 house? If only my great great granddad had been able to invest that stolen 500 in GE --- I would not be were I am today!

Tell everyone that government's do not create money --- they take money from productive citizens ----

Answer 5

While it would make sense to redress recent injustices, historical injustices are to be learned from, not exploited for gain. Such payments would come out of current tax reciepts, which would come from current citizens. There is no reason to punish people for a crime they not only did not commit, themselves, but were not even born in the time in which it was committed. Furthermore, the people recieving reparations would not be the ones actually wronged.

To hold persons responsible for a crime committed by long-dead citizens of thier country would be even more unjust than to hold them responsible for the crimes of thier own ancestors. And, to judge someone based on thier ancestry is the very definition of racism.

Why should a nation adopt a policy that is /worse/ than racism?

Answer 6

The taxpayers who support the current government are presumably not the taxpayers who perpetrated the historical injustice. So, the wrong people are being punished.

Also, the government should not mete out tax dollars to correct injustice perpetrated by private actors. If the argument is that the actor was the government, there are other remedies available to correct the injustice. Example: revision of laws which perpetrated the injustice, preferential hiring or other benefits to victims of the injustice.

Answer 7

In some cases yes they should.

As long as those who were hurt by the historical injustices are still alive to be paid.

And thats the whole argument.

Some want reparations paid to the offspring 10 generations later, for injustices done long ago.

But those living now, suffered no injustice, so why pay them reparations.

Answer 8

The main reason why I do not support economic reparations is the simple fact that it is inherently unfair to make people who had nothing to do with this injustice pay for it.

Example:

It is inherently unfair to make people who had nothing to do with slavery, pay reparations to the decedents of former slave (who themselves never experienced the injustice).

Answer 9

there is probable no ordinary and equitable thank you to distribute reparations and make certain who will pay what. some factors to contemplate: one million. could the decendants of the masses of Union squaddies who died interior the Civil conflict be expempt from making funds? 2. could all those whose ancestors got here to this u . s . after the top of slavery be exempt. 3. could people of blended race would desire to make funds as properly as get carry of a few. How could that be finished. 4. could people who've won assorted varieties of government advantages have a definite element deducted from their reparation funds? 5. could companies interior the North that exploited immigrant exertions be held as to blame as planters interior the South? the former team paid wages yet did no longer take any accountability for his or her workers. The latter team did no longer pay wages, profited from slave exertions, yet took accountability for his or her workers from cradle to grave. the two structures had their inequities. How do you identify which workers are owed extra? The record of questions ought to pass on and on. isn't there some thank you to settle the money owed in procedures that don't pit one team of individuals against yet another? they may well be argued advert infinitem, yet there are no longer ordinary solutions. maybe we would desire to continuously come across a thank you to settle the depts of yet another era in a fashion that works for each guy or woman. working example, all of us's babies deserve sturdy educations, equivalent oportunities and the mutual admire of all different individuals. If all of us artwork in the direction of those targets, regardless of the circumstances of our ancestors, in time, we would locate the thank you to make issues extra ideal, if no longer precisely even.

Answer 10

With few exceptions, "government" = "the people". So, why should some of the people of today pay other people of today for what some people of yesterday did or did not do to other people of yesterday?